Stella Rimington - Rip Tide

‘Look, can you see him?’ Liz said to Fontana, lifting her arm to point to the figure forcing his way through the onlookers.

Fontana stared and stared, then suddenly said, ‘Got him!’ He spoke into his radio, and listened to the response crackling back. He shook his head in frustration. ‘There’s no one near him. We’re going to lose him again.’

But Malik was clearly visible now. He was no longer heading for the stage, but was moving slowly towards the rope cordoning off their side of the crowd. Fontana was on the radio again, giving a running commentary. ‘He’s coming out of the crowd. Left-hand side facing the stage… halfway down…’

He turned to Liz. ‘He must have found he couldn’t get through all those people.’

They stood watching, the distant figure becoming clearer with every second that passed. Two armed policeman came running from the side of the stage just as Malik – distinguishable now in his suit jacket – pushed his way out of the heaving mob of girls and started to run along beside the rope towards the stage.

Then he saw the two policemen ahead of him and hesitated. One hand moved towards his jacket pocket, and for a moment Liz thought he was going to blow himself up right there. One of the policemen shouted at him – Liz could see his lips working furiously. His colleague was crouching, his weapon held in both hands, aimed and ready to fire.

But Malik must have changed his mind. His hand came out of his pocket again and he turned round, now facing their little group of three, less than a hundred yards away. He started running towards them, moving awkwardly in his heavy jacket.

Liz heard Tahira shriek, and Fontana stepped in front to shield them. The two policemen sprinting after Malik were catching up fast. Both had their weapons out now, and both were shouting – though with the music so loud there was no chance Malik would hear them.

He was now only fifty yards away from Liz and Tahira, but the two Special Branch men were very close behind. They were trying to get into a position where they could fire away from the crowd and avoid hitting Liz and her two companions.

Malik was within thirty yards now and suddenly his hand moved quickly into his jacket again. Both policemen fired. The Glock pistols made a flat metallic noise, hardly audible over the beat of the Chick Peas’ backing band.

As Tahira screamed Malik fell, flat on his face. He lay unmoving on the ground as blood seeped slowly out of his head.

Amazingly, virtually no one in the crowd had paid any attention to what was going on at the side of the park. The armed officers quickly put away their weapons, as uniformed police arrived to shield the body from view, and gently but firmly move the crowd away from the ropes, telling them that someone had had an accident. People were happy to comply since they were far more interested in the music being played on stage than in someone who’d been taken ill.

Whatever explosives there were beneath Malik’s jacket, the man was not alive to detonate them. But within minutes the bomb squad arrived, coming in discreetly from the back of the ground while the police finished erecting a tent over the body and placing a cordon round the area. The concert was nearly over now, and people were beginning to drift away from the back of the crowd. Soon the rest of the audience would be on the move, shepherded out by the police; then the park would be closed while the forensic team moved in.

Liz walked with Tahira to the back entrance where they sat in Fontana’s car watching as various police units came and went. Tahira had said nothing since Malik was shot. She was shaking and was obviously in deep shock. Suddenly she started to cry – big shuddering sobs. Liz put an arm round her. ‘You were very brave,’ she said, meaning every word.

Tahira was trying to speak through her sobs, ‘He was heading straight for me. He wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill all of us.’

Liz had no doubt that Malik had decided to take them with him once he saw he couldn’t get near the stage. Ten more seconds and he would have succeeded. But that wouldn’t help Tahira. So she said gently, ‘You know death didn’t mean the same thing to him as it does to you and me.’

Tahira looked up, wiping her streaming eyes with the back of her hand. ‘What do you mean?’

‘For Malik this was only a temporary world, a brief stop on the way to Paradise. That’s why he wanted to kill himself. Death is welcomed by someone who thinks they’re going to another, better life.’

‘But we would all have died! And he said he cared about me. He told me I should always remember that. He said I was special…’

‘I know. And he meant it. But he also believed you would meet again – in this other, better world of his.’

Tahira nodded. ‘That’s what he said – that I might not see him again here, but that he was certain we would meet in future.’

‘Yes. I am sure that’s what he thought,’ said Liz, and Tahira seemed satisfied by this explanation.

But Liz wasn’t. From where she sat in the car, she could see down the side of the stage to the park. It was a sad sight on that late-summer afternoon: the litter-strewn field, the stage being dismantled, and two white-coated orderlies lifting a stretcher into the back of an ambulance.

Her mind was full of questions. If Malik really had cared for Tahira, would he have wanted to murder her? It certainly looked as if he’d intended to. But did he actually believe he would see her again in Paradise? As far as Liz understood, the celestial rewards were reserved for martyrs – and though Malik might have considered himself a martyr, it was hard to see how his killing Tahira would have made her one as well.

No, he must just have seen her, like the Chick Peas and everyone else at the concert – men, women and children – as a sacrifice, to be killed in pursuit of his objective. And what was that objective anyway? Was it his personal desire to become a martyr, or did he really think of himself as a warrior in a justified war, defending his religion?

Yet he’d had more than half a chance to do what he’d set out to do. He could have exploded his suicide belt at any minute – he’d had plenty of time, even after he’d spotted the armed police coming towards him. The Chick Peas would have escaped – he hadn’t got close enough to the stage – but he could have killed dozens of ‘Infidels’, mainly silly teenage girls, having fun at a harmless entertainment that he disliked.

So why hadn’t he? Why didn’t he pull the cord as soon as he thought he would be captured or shot? If he was the loyal jihadi that he seemed to have been, why hadn’t he gone ahead and achieved his aim?

It didn’t make sense. All these contradictions – to kill but not to kill; to kill a friend but not to kill strangers. There’d never be an answer now. Not with Malik lying dead on a stretcher.

There was only one thing left to do – look after the living. Liz put her arm round Tahira’s shoulders again as Fontana arrived back at the car. This girl still had a life ahead of her.

‘Liz around?’

Peggy looked up to find Kanaan Shah standing in front of her desk. ‘No, she’s away for a few days. Holiday.’

‘Well deserved.’

‘I’ll say. How’s it going with you?’

‘Fine, thanks. I’ve just come from seeing Salim and Jamila. The Boatmans. They’re adjusting pretty well, all things considered. Jamila would love to see Liz sometime.’

‘Liz said she’d visit her as soon as she gets back.’

‘Good. I’ve got something here for you both to read. The last sentence is mind-boggling.’

He handed a ragged piece of newsprint to Peggy. It was a cutting from a recent edition of the Birmingham Asian News: